Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, February 12, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time, C, Vigil
February 12, 2022

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The text that guided the homily was: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation Jesus wants to have with us in this Sunday’s Gospel, in which he will speak to us about the path to true happiness with words that are quite shocking and countercultural in every age. The path to lasting joy, he indicates, is the life of faith, one in which we place our trust in God rather than in money, in pleasure, in entertainment or in the esteem of others. It’s what’s called the Sermon on the Plain, which begins with St. Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. Whereas Jesus the Sermon on the Mount features eight aspects of the path to beatitude, in the Sermon on the Plain he focuses on four and contrasts them clearly to four “woes.” This divergence shows that speaking about the path to true happiness, contrasting his ways with the ways of the world, was one of Jesus’ central messages, regularly developed with different nuances. But his essential teaching remains the same: the real path to joy, the way to have life to the full forever, is not just different, but in fact opposite, than what those infected by spiritual worldliness often presume. St. Luke introduces Jesus’ four great contrasts by saying, “Raising his eyes toward his disciples, [Jesus] said.” In other words, Jesus looks each of us straight in the eyes as he gives us this teaching. Let’s receive what Jesus says not as words to “others” or to “everyone,” but to you and me.
• The first contrast is “Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours,” versus “Woe to you are rich, for you have received your consolation.” It is simply revolutionary — not just in Jesus’ age, not just our era, but in every epoch — to believe that we’ll be happier if we’re poor than if we’re rich. The point he’s making is those who are rich often place their faith, hope and security in money and the things money can buy; those who are poor, on the other hand, often have no one or nothing to turn to but God. In terms of what really matters, their poverty turns out to be a blessing because it helps them to place their treasure in the Lord.  Jesus says that the “rich” are to be pitied because they have already received their consolation in their money and possessions and often do not look for it in God, in his promises, in his kingdom. Today many people, including Christians, spend more time nourishing their hope to win the lottery rather than to win the eternal bonanza, and Jesus says that these people are “woeful” because they think that the monopoly money and temporary houses on Park Avenue are more valuable that the Father’s House and treasure.
• The second contrast is “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied,” versus, “Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.” It’s those who are really hungry who can really pray the words, “Give us today our daily bread,” because they learn to hunger and trust in God’s fatherly care. Those who are full, who have no food worries, can often begin to take God’s providence for granted, and can stop even saying thanks to God for the food. One state helps to bring one closer to God and to placing our foundation in him; the other can often help to turn our hearts away from him. There are people who live to satiate their bodily appetites, obsessing about meals at restaurants, storing up precious wines in cellars, with obese hearts set on earthly banquets and often ignoring those who don’t even have crumbs on which to eat each day. Jesus warns them with a “woe” that even though they are now filled and fattened, one day they will hunger for the things that matter most. Those who are blessed, on the other hand, are those who are hungry for the eternal wedding banquet, hungry for God, hungry for what God hungers, hungry and thirsty for holiness more than for bread and water, hungry to receive Jesus in the Eucharist more than they do sumptuous breakfasts, are those who will be satisfied.
• The third contrast is “Blessed are you who are now weeping for you will laugh” versus “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.” Those who are laughing now can begin to put their trust and happiness in their own wit or in a group of interesting and entertaining friends and experiences. Experiencing human contentment, they can easily have their desire for eternal happiness lessened. Those who are weeping on the other hand, who are entrusting their pains, sorrows and intercessions to God, are those who will have the time of their eternal lives. This points to the truth that there are always people who want to make fun their god, who go from diversion to diversion, party to party, who don’t take life seriously because they’re living for the present moment unaware that the present moment is passing away. They try to escape from reality, trying to insulate themselves from sadness and suffering as much as they can. They don’t realize that there will be a time when the music will stop, when all the lights will be turned on, and they’ll come face to face with their Creator and need to give an account of how they’ve invested the talent of their time, either in caring for others or in carousing (Mt 24). The blessed, on the other hand, are those who weep now because they grieve with God the separation of others from him, over their true misfortune, over their and others’ sins that have brought so much suffering and death into the world, over seeing Christ be crucified for the forgiveness of these sins, over so many who live as if God doesn’t exist, as if life has no direction or meaning, over those who are unprepared for the final exam of life. Jesus wept over Jerusalem and the death of his friend Lazarus. The Blessed Mother wept in the apparitions of Our Lady of LaSalette St. Monica wept when her son Augustine. Jesus says those who weep like this are blessed because one day they will laugh, laugh at how God has brought good out of evil, laugh at how what seemed so foolish in the perspective of eternity now seems so wise, laugh with the Good Thief, laugh with those who successfully bet Pascal’s wager and won an eternal jackpot.
• The last contrast is “Blessed are you when people hate you, … exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man” versus “Woe to you when all speak well of you.” He says that the false prophets, the spiritual terrorists and great villains of history, were similarly praised in their lifetime but ended up facing judgment; the real heroes of eternity, the true prophets, were opposed, denounced and even killed, but because they lived with total dependence on God, trusting in him even and especially when it was hard, they now are rejoicing and leaping for joy forever. Jesus says that we’re blessed when we’re persecuted, when our lives and our speech are prophetic, and when we announce to people God’s revelation, both the consolations and the castigations. Such witness is called in Greek “martyrion” for a very good reason, because it is a challenge to worldly ways of living and will bring us, to some degree, to share in Christ’s own martyrdom to bring us the Good News. To be a Christian is to be a prophet, and to be a prophet is to suffer for the Gospel when the message of the Gospel is not in conformity with the spirit of the age. Jesus is essentially saying, “Blessed are the true prophets,” who live for God and for eternity and “Woe to the false prophets,” who live for being praised by the mobs today rather than by God and the saints forever.
• The real question each of us needs to face is whether our values, our logic, our focus are like Jesus’ or like the world’s. Many of us, if given the chance to be humanly rich like Jeff Bezos or spiritually wealthy like a poor, old, holy widow would say, “Show me the money!” If given the choice between being the life of the party or someone who is mocked, misunderstood, or maltreated because of our fidelity to Christ, most of us would say “Party on!” If given the choice between feasting or fasting, most of us would respond saying, “I’ll have the filet mignon medium rare and a glass of Merlot.” But like the temptations Christ will undergo the desert, the devil often uses food, riches, and the promise of power or popularity to draw us away from God. This Sunday Jesus describes for us a choice between two types of trust: genuine trust in God or a trust in the things of God that the devil can often easily manipulate to draw our hearts away from God.
• It’s at Mass that we come poor to receive Jesus’ richness, hungry to be fed, sorrowful and desiring to do reparation for our sins and those of the world, and seeking the strength to remain true even when we should have to suffer on account of our faith. As we prepare for Sunday, let’s lift up our eyes and hearts with loving trust to Jesus, who will lift his eyes to us, engage us in a life-changing consequential conversation, and try to set us on the path to eternal happiness as true prophets leading others onto that narrow way.

The Gospel for this Sunday is: 

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